Sorry it's not Craig. I'm Chris and I love Black VL's because I'm a bit biased towards them. I have only just last year become a member of Calais Turbo.com as I never checked the site because I have a v8 Calais not a turbo. I didn't realise that all VL's are accepted on this site. The 1k001 register was interesting to me as I have a factory tuxedo black V8 VL Calais sedan that I have owned since 1997. It was originally a special order council members car in NSW and only had 70,000kms on it at that time. Its now in SA with me and has about 200,000kms as it was my daily driver until 2012. Now it's in my shed next to my 2 door LJ Torana. Both need a tidy up. I had my Cal on the road last year (2017) and got heaps of attention and even though it is in average condition at the moment I still had several people offer me over $20k for it. Its not for sale, friends are saying I'll be buried with it. I think it's very rare as it is a v8 of which not many black ones were v8 and it's an auto and the other VL tuxedo Calais V8 sedan on the register I think is a manual and one other is V8 auto.

---------- Post added 09-07-18 at 20:46 ----------

I just checked the compliance plate and my tuxedo black VL Calais sedan is May87 build, LV2 engine and M40 trans with full grey trim including the front and rear seats having enclosed headrests with matching velour trim same as the seats. When I first got the calais there were polished VL Calais rims on it but I traded them in on a brand new set of original walkinshaw wheels and had a set of kelly charger tyres installed. The tyres lasted for approx 80,000ks. I'm considering buying another set of polished VL calais wheels as a spare set and I'm also considering a set of black 5 spoke simmons wheels with polished rim edges or a spare set of walkinshaw wheels that I will get the centres painted black and leave the rim edges polished. SA now have great rego laws with log book rego so I might finally get it on the road more often as it is an 87 model it is now 30yrs old and qualifies for that type of rego. Yaye!

---------- Post added 09-07-18 at 20:50 ----------

I cant put any pictures up until I work out how to go about it. Apparently it has to be done through a photo upload site and then the links posted here. Anyone know of any good easy to use current photo sites that I could use?

I cant put any pictures up until I work out how to go about it. Apparently it has to be done through a photo upload site and then the links posted here. Anyone know of any good easy to use current photo sites that I could use?

Great share Chris and welcome.

Always good to see more content here.

Glad SA has stepped up with club rego too.

Use tinypic app for iPhone (it’s a bit fiddly to start with but is quite good).
There’s a desktop version too.

Most of these pictures are taken on my old mobile phone when street lights had just come on for the night so unfortunately they are not the highest quality. The picture on the beach is when I had my friends mags on it back in 1999. The compliance plate picture I have edited my body number out of the picture, because I'm like that with any ID stuff including the number plates on my car.
Here goes my first attempt at putting pictures on a forum.

I'll send more images in a minute when i check that this has worked.

---------- Post added 10-07-18 at 21:41 ----------

More pictures...

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---------- Post added 11-07-18 at 00:03 ----------

Resized picture, but I don't know how to remove the same picture that is too large in the previous post. I thought it would let me edit the previous link out but I can't see how to do that!!

---------- Post added 11-07-18 at 17:53 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by TuxedoCal

Most of these pictures are taken on my old mobile phone when street lights had just come on for the night so unfortunately they are not the highest quality. The picture on the beach is when I had my friends mags on it back in 1999. The compliance plate picture I have edited my body number out of the picture, because I'm like that with any ID stuff including the number plates on my car.
Here goes my first attempt at putting pictures on a forum.

I'll send more images in a minute when i check that this has worked.

---------- Post added 10-07-18 at 21:41 ----------

More pictures...

---------- Post added 10-07-18 at 21:53 ----------

---------- Post added 10-07-18 at 21:55 ----------

---------- Post added 11-07-18 at 00:03 ----------

[/COLOR]Resized picture, but I don't know how to remove the same picture that is too large in the previous post. I thought it would let me edit the previous link out but I can't see how to do that!!

Finally, I was able to edit out the link to the oversized photo. Much better now

I can happily confirm that they are both still my cars locked away in my shed.

Both are overdue for a bit of a tidy up.
I have my original motor for the VL that has 'Brock' spec stuff added like 'B' cast heads, inlet manifold and internals, roller rockers, flat top pistons etc. I need to sort out what camshaft to use then I'll look at putting the motor back in the Calais to put everything back to matching numbers. Current motor in the car was supposed to be a temporary replacement while I did the rebuild but then I got married/kids/house etc and the Calais was way down the list of things to do.

Torana has a spare 6cyl HP motor to rebuild and put in and possibly another respray and it will be back to being a good street car. It can still be rego'd and driven as is with a quick wash of the dust etc but I'd like to improve it a bit.

I let my wife drive the Torana but no-one is allowed to drive the Calais apart from me, basically if something goes wrong with the Calais or it's involved in an accident I don't want to blame anyone else except myself, plus I don't want anyone to leave it anywhere that it could be easily broken into or stolen. I've had plenty of Torana's but only one tuxedo Calais and it's rare so I'm very protective of it

Thanks. I was actually looking for a drk blu v8 Calais as my uncle had an original VL SV88 so I wanted to build a replica SV88 and then we would use both of the cars as my wedding cars but I didn't end up marrying that chick and his SV88 got stolen and burnt out unfortunately.
I saw this Calais at night time in a car yard under orange street lighting and I had been looking for about 2yrs for a V8 preferably in Dk blu and it looked like a dk blu one. I went back the next day and saw it was black and I had to hide my excitement so that I could talk them down on the price and it worked. I've owned it since 1997 and it was originally owned by a council in NSW as a special order for a female councillor. It had 70000kms on it when I got it and it was my daily driver until 2012 and now has 200000kms on it. I have only seen one other black one in SA in all the time I've owned it and it was a nice turbo one but not sure if it was factory black like mine or just painted black by someone. I've lost count of the amount of people that have wanted to buy it off of me. Even last year (2017) when I registered it for 3 months several people offered me over $20k for it but it's not for sale.

Looks nice. If I had the money I would buy it to have it next to my Tuxedo VL Calais as a nice pair. Actually these Simmons mags are what I want on my Calais one day. Edit- Too late - as of 30/7/2018 it has been removed from Gumtree as SOLD. It has not been re-advertised yet so must be sold, unless he is keeping it.

Last edited by TuxedoCal; 30-07-18 at 22:43.
Reason: The car advert was removed from Gumtree.

My Calais pictures I have not got any interior pictures but it is what people would refer to as a series 2 grey interior (some say there is no such thing as series 2). I took the front seats out years ago and put Honda Prelude Low profile dark grey seats in that are figure hugging and very comfy but I'm considering putting the original seats back in now. Also I have an after market stereo fitted but am now thinking of removing it and putting my original Calais factory stereo back in. The interior has the headrests that are fully covered with material. I might pull up the carpet and check if the production printout sheet is still there, should be interesting. I see you have the same Calais as me but the turbo version - very nice car you have there.
FYI - I have just thought you may have been commenting on the black berlina in the above post by me but it is not my car it's someone else's currently for sale on Gumtree in case you were referring to that and not my actual Black Calais.